Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 968 "Skadi"
Four days later.
Mukah Fortress, above.
A giant warship with a length of more than 700 meters slowly sailed into the airspace directly above the fortress. The huge shadow almost covered most of the fortress, attracting many officers and soldiers who were training and preparing on the ground to stop and look up.
The heavy cruiser was still in the original color of the alloy material, without any painting or decoration, and it looked like it had just been rushed out of the dock. But from another angle, these unfinished welding marks and exposed rivets gave the warship a rough temperament, and with the muzzle of the triple-mounted heavy plasma main gun pointing obliquely at the ground, just by being parked in the air, an indescribable pressure spread out.
The main guns of ordinary heavy cruisers are single-barreled large-caliber plasma cannons, but this battleship is equipped with a high-efficiency energy converter discovered from the ruins of the Alpha civilization and a more powerful magnetic field generator, which triples the number of main guns and greatly enhances firepower.
Although there were only four days, but during these four days, relying on the guidance of the hive master, Ke Lan and others "plundered" eight S-level and A-level ruins whose exploration progress had not exceeded 20% before, and made a lot of money - the technologies left over from the Alpha civilization might not be digested for the time being, but the ready-made equipment and facilities could be used directly.
Many of the equipment that Yaguna Kotor did not need were sent directly to the shipyard of Griffin Fortress and were all installed on this newly-built Orca-class heavy cruiser.
For example, the power reactor that can support triple plasma cannons, heavy cruiser engines and super-large energy shields is the core energy supply device of an A-level relic. In the language of Alpha civilization, this thing is called "City Heart" - this is a level III city heart, enough to maintain the operation of all public facilities in a city of 500,000 people. If converted into the output power of a power plant, it is approximately between 150 megawatts and 200 megawatts.
Just based on the power reactor, the "heart" of the battleship, this Orca-class heavy cruiser is enough to crush all the aircraft carriers and battleships in the original Ark Air Force fleet.
"If we are given enough materials and time, we can build many more of these warships, and even a full fleet will not be a problem!" These were the original words of the chief engineer of the Fourth Shipyard of Griffin Fortress. When Ke Lan filled the shipyard's yard with those "relics" of the Alpha civilization that were once extremely rare, the chief engineer's self-confidence swelled to the extreme.
As a person who has designed and built warships all his life, who wouldn't want to build an "invincible fleet" himself?
Unfortunately, although there were enough materials, time did not allow him to build an entire fleet.
The situation outside the Ark is getting worse and worse. With every day that passes, the area of the fleshy fungal blanket covering the surface of the Ark will expand a lot, and the monsters bred in the tumors will become more powerful and more incredible.
Assuming that these monsters will become the main force to block Ke Lan and his team in the next battle, then the current Ark is like the extreme "explosion" operation in the RTS game, investing all resources into the expansion of the troops and pulling out an astonishingly large army in a very short time.
Of course, Ke Lan and the others didn't know whether Ark had really invested all its resources, but according to the observations of the drone, in these four days, the number of tumors that bred monsters had increased several times faster than before, and the total number of monsters was more than ten times that of four days ago.
This is just the situation on the surface of the Ark that they can observe.
What Ke Lan is most worried about is the changes inside the Ark.
Now they have no real-time intelligence from inside the Ark, and all the reconnaissance and infiltration forces sent to the Ark have fallen into oblivion, without any news at all... No one knows what the Ark looks like now, and it is completely unknown whether there are any survivors.
Except for General Maginot who still held out a glimmer of hope for the reconnaissance teams, everyone else agreed that even if they waited another four or forty days, there would be no results.
The loss of contact with the reconnaissance unit has caused them to lose the initiative. The only way to regain the initiative is to send a large army to the border and use the simplest and crudest but also the most effective reconnaissance method, "fire reconnaissance" - "cannons fire and blow him up!"
No matter how much the area of the fleshy fungal blanket increases, no matter what level those monsters have been transformed into... In short, the triple-mounted plasma main gun will be fired directly at the face, and it depends on whether the opponent will accept it.
However, Ke Lan and his team are not completely without a backup plan. The owner of the Hive City gave Ke Lan a batch of warship design drawings. These design drawings did not come from the Alpha civilization, but were the legacy left by the Hive City civilization. The writing of the Hive City civilization is different from that of the Alpha civilization. It is logical. After Ke Lan's translation, it can be converted into the language used by the Ark civilization. Therefore, these design drawings can be understood by the technicians in the shipyard.
Ke Lan chose two types of warships - both types are small warships, and the classification within the Hive Civilization is "Armor-piercing Cone Class" and "One-handed Hammer Class". The former is a highly maneuverable assault landing ship with few weapons and equipment, but it is equipped with a high-strength shield generator, thick bow armor and powerful thrusters. It can pierce directly into the core center of the enemy formation like a real armor-piercing cone, and then use the land combat troops on board to carry out a decapitation strike on the enemy's command center.
The latter, as its name suggests, "One-handed Hammer", completely abandons defense and pursues a one-hit-to-escape, one-shot-to-kill style of attack. It equips a light, highly maneuverable battleship with a super-large caliber main gun that only heavy battleships are equipped with... It is better to say that it is based on this gun and equipped with a thruster and a bridge rather than a gun installed on the battleship... The combat strategy of the "One-handed Hammer" class battleship is also very simple. It relies on high maneuverability to enter the main gun's range, aim at the target, fire, and then quickly distance itself from the enemy, waiting for the next attack opportunity.
In fact, there are many more powerful warships in the design drawings provided by the nest master, but Ke Lan only chose these two for a reason - these two warships require less materials and fewer technical difficulties to overcome. With the conditions of the fourth shipyard of Griffin Fortress, large-scale mass production can be implemented quickly. If the comfort of the cabin is not considered and practicality is pursued completely, the construction period of a single warship can even be compressed to less than two months.
Of course, the most important reason is that these two types of warships require very few people to operate them - not counting the landing troops on board, the "Armor-Piercing Cone-class" assault landing ship only needs four people to operate: a captain and helmsman, a fire controller, a mechanic in charge of the engine room, and a dispatcher responsible for controlling the landing capsule, that's enough.
As for the "One-Handed Hammer" class high-mobility fire support ship, the crew has been reduced to three people.
Under the current circumstances, Ke Lan and his team have no time to train new recruits, and all warship operators can only be selected from the survivors of Fleet Zero... Once the battle between them and the Ark enters a stalemate, the shipyard at the Griffin Base becomes the key.
Someone must drive the warships produced by the Fourth Shipyard. Ships without people cannot form combat power. For this reason, most of the survivors of Fleet Zero were divided into two groups, one group stayed on Yagunakotor, and the other group stayed in Mukach Fortress and Griffin Fortress... They are very valuable troops, and Ke Lan has no plan to put them into the first round of battle.
If these people were killed, there would be no one to drive the newly built warships.
…
"Captain Alexander." Standing on the bridge of the Orca-class cruiser and gazing at the distant horizon, Maginot suddenly felt a sense of heroism in his heart for no apparent reason. In the first half of his life, all he thought about was how to climb to a higher position. As for commanding a large army to fight, it had never been within his consideration.
Maginot once even thought that he would never experience any major battles until his retirement.
He just needs to work like a civilian officer... no, or like a corporate executive, sitting in the office. As for the fighting and killing, there will always be someone to do it - but no matter who it is, it will never be his turn.
But life seemed to have played a little joke on him - on the plains below, an army of 200,000 men was assembled. They were the only remaining army in the entire human civilization, and they were about to place all their bets and go for a war whose outcome and chances of winning were completely unknown.
Adrenaline diluted the fear and anxiety in his heart. Maginot even felt that even if he was given the steering wheel of the battleship, he would dare to drive the battleship directly into the Ark. The Hound guy was right when he said, "Since there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to worry about. The worst that can happen is that you will lose your life."
Death is a scary thing, but it is also something that everyone has to experience... After understanding this, Maginot didn't seem to be so afraid of death anymore.
He took a deep breath and continued, "Have you thought about what to name your new flagship?"
"Name?" Major General Alexander was stunned for a moment and turned to look at Maginot.
"The internal number of this Orca-class heavy cruiser in the Air Force Fleet is NF159, but the name of the battleship itself has not yet been decided. I have read the relevant documents and there are three pre-selected names. To be honest, none of them are very suitable for the current atmosphere."
This Orca-class heavy cruiser was originally scheduled to be delivered to the First Cruiser Fleet. As the Orca-class is a defensive warship, its name is mostly made up of words such as "guardian" and "strong shield"... But now what they need is not a strong enough "shield", but a "spear" that is determined to pierce through everything.
"Uh... To be honest, I'm not very good at naming." Major General Alexander shrugged helplessly and threw the question to Ke Lan, "Ke Lan, why don't you do it?"
"Will you let me pick a name?" Ke Lan thought for a moment and said, "Since it's 'Killer Whale Class', let's call her 'Skadi'!"
"Skadi?" Makino and Alexander were both slightly startled. The latter silently repeated the name several times and asked in confusion, "It sounds like a girl's name."
"Isn't a girl's name nice?" Ke Lan laughed. "Besides, the goddess of victory is a woman. No one has ever heard of the male god of victory, right? Let's call her 'Skadi'. Skadi is our goddess of victory!"
"Now that you explain it this way, I understand." Makino nodded vigorously and gave Ke Lan a thumbs up. "Good name, it is indeed a good name."
While Machino was busy flattering Ke Lan, the hound on the other side tugged at Layton's sleeve and asked, "Skadi... do you know anyone with this name? Could it be Ke Lan's old lover, or first love or something? Damn, could this guy have a woman outside without Miss Soma's knowledge?"
"I've never heard of anyone with this name around Ke Lan... If he is really her lover, then he has done a very good job of keeping it a secret... That's not right. When Ke Lan was on the Ark, he basically stayed with us. How could he have time to pick up girls?" Layton said, scratching his head.
"Maybe it's an online friend..." The Hound nodded and glanced at Zofia Soma who was standing not far away.
"You two stop guessing." Ze Luo had walked behind Hound and Layton without knowing when, "The Skadi that Ke Lan mentioned is actually a character in a game."
"What? A game character?" The hound turned his head and found that the "three-no" girl had changed her appearance - she was wearing a dark blue combat suit, her long white hair dragged on the ground, her pair of red eyes were clear and transparent, and although her face was still expressionless, compared with her previous appearance, there was a hint of inexplicable cuteness.
Behind her, she was carrying a giant sword that was almost as tall as her, and there were traces of what looked like mucus on the blade.
"This is... Skadi?" The hound was stunned. "Why did Ke Lan give the battleship this name?"
"Because the prototype of this game character is the killer whale!" Ze Luo answered immediately.
"Killer whale anthropomorphism? What kind of weird XP is this... I didn't expect Ke Lan would like this?" The hound said with a grin.
"In that game, Skadi's enemy is the octopus-like Cthulhu creature lurking in the deep sea. In a way, the enemies she faces are very similar to us... and Skadi's heavy sword once severely damaged the most powerful of those monsters. I think Ke Lan chose this name because she hopes that this battleship can severely damage the monsters entrenched in the Ark." Ze Luo said.
"I almost forgot that you are also a senior online player..." Hound subconsciously stretched out his hand to pat Ze Luo's head, but stopped halfway, coughed twice, and said seriously, "It's not enough to just deal a heavy blow. When facing the enemy, we must crush it thoroughly!"
